Author Archive

Okay, so the “Let’s move Otaku Ohana to a new domain name!” operation isn’t exactly going as smoothly as we expected. Not the posts, mind you; we’ve been posting quite happily as of late. It’s just you may have noticed that none of it’s being promoted on the staradvertiser.com front page or the blog roll. To that end, we’re going to be cross-posting opening-paragraph previews of our new blog posts here on blogs.starbulletin.com for the time being that’ll point you to our new home at otakuohana.staradvertiserblogs.com, so that those of you seeing this blog for the first time or haven’t checked back in a while know that we still exist. Thanks for your continued readership!

One of the neat things about local anime and manga fandom is how it’s spawned an entire generation of people eager to whip out their sketchbooks and draw things inspired by the series that they love. I’ve seen that talent manifest itself in the Liliha Library Anime Art Contest for the past two years now, MangaBento’s art exhibits, and the Artist Alley at Kawaii Kon and HEXXP, and the art’s been really, really nice.

Well, it’s time once again to nurture that talent. Pen & Ink Works has a neat event coming up from 2 to 5 p.m. Saturday to do just that — a Sketch Meet where artists can hang out, participate in some drawing games and trade tips with one another.

… well, okay, I was tempted to just post that and call it a day, but that would be unfair to you, the few, proud (I hope?) Otaku Ohana readers who keep checking your RSS feeds, Twitter or Facebook to see if I’ve posted anything new.

Yet there’s no denying that this weekend will be a busy one, packed with panels and events and wacky spur-of-the-moment happenings and other weird and wonderful stuff that the local fan community seems to come up with every year.

Okay, so the “Let’s move Otaku Ohana to a new domain name!” operation isn’t exactly going as smoothly as we expected. Not the posts, mind you; we’ve been posting quite happily as of late. It’s just you may have noticed that none of it’s being promoted on the staradvertiser.com front page or the blog roll. To that end, we’re going to be cross-posting opening-paragraph previews of our new blog posts here on blogs.starbulletin.com for the time being that’ll point you to our new home at otakuohana.staradvertiserblogs.com, so that those of you seeing this blog for the first time or haven’t checked back in a while know that we still exist. Thanks for your continued readership!

2012 is shaping up to be quite the year for local fans of the Final Fantasy video game franchise.The latest game in the series, Final Fantasy XIII-2, recently arrived in stores. Yoshitaka Amano, who’s contributed character designs and artwork to the franchise over the years, will be a major part of Kawaii Kon next week.

Today, the other pop-culture convention in town, the Hawaii Entertainment Expo (HEXXP), is showing its hand for the first time regarding what’s up for this year’s show. There are now official dates — Sat., Oct. 20 and Sun., Oct. 21 — and a venue — the Aloha Tower Marketplace Waterfront. They’re teaming up with Babel Entertainment and Houston-based anime convention Oni-Con to bring in their first official guest of honor, and it’s a doozy of an announcement — longtime Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu.